BOB BRIGHAM, - The Raw Story
Stephan: Here is another one. We are desperately overdue to have a national conversation on the linkage of sexually disordered behaviors like those described in this report and religions. It is a very large problem afflicting Roman Catholicism, evangelical and charismatic Protestantism, Ultra-orthodox Judaism as well as both Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims. But have you noticed there aren't stories in which Quakers or Unitarians or Reformed Jews figure? Why is that?
The commonality in all cases is sexuality distorted because of imposed or adopted attitudes and behaviors. By the standards of theThe Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), published by the American Psychiatric Association, as I read it, this should be categorized as a mental illness. It is a central feature of Christofascism.
Larry Michael Berkley, mugshot courtesy of the Boone County Sheriff’s Office
A Baptist pastor who has been charged for child rape in multiple states is back in jail in Arkansas.
The Boone County Arkansas Sheriff’s Office booked Pastor Larry Berkley on charges of failure to appear, the latest in a three year legal battle against the former pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church in Harrison, AR.
“A Harrison Police daily log of activity shows Boone County authorities contacted the HPD about 9:30 p.m. Wednesday for warrant confirmation on Berkley, 38, for sexual solicitation, four counts of first-degree sexual assault, seven counts of second-degree sexual assault, six counts of knowingly furnishing alcohol to a minor, four counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and two counts of loaning pornography to minors,” the Harrison Daily reports.
Berkley is accused of furnishing drugs and alcohol to teenage boys that he sexually assaulted.
After posting bond in Arkansas, Pastor Berkley was indicted by a Lauderdale County, Tennessee grand jury on two counts of rape, four counts of aggravated statutory rape, […]
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JEAN M. TWENGE , - The Atlantic
Stephan: Technological change produces unanticipated cultural change, and nowhere is that clearer than in the rise of the smart phone. Even more than computers, because of their portability, smartphones are creating massive social transformation. What we are seeing, and it is happening almost without public discussion is a generation that literally lives in another reality from the one even millennials experienced. A reality parents can barely understand.
It isn't a question is this good or bad -- nostalgia for what you remember is unhelpful -- this is what is, the way things are, and we need to understand what they means. How does it relate, for instance, with the precipitous drop in sperm count? Consider also how a next generation with this profile relates to the epidemic of depression and opioid addiction.
Here is the best report on these effects that I have read to date. Particularly look at the charts that accompany the article.
One day last summer, around noon, I called Athena, a 13-year-old who lives in Houston, Texas. She answered her phone—she’s had an iPhone since she was 11—sounding as if she’d just woken up. We chatted about her favorite songs and TV shows, and I asked her what she likes to do with her friends. “We go to the mall,” she said. “Do your parents drop you off?,” I asked, recalling my own middle-school days, in the 1980s, when I’d enjoy a few parent-free hours shopping with my friends. “No—I go with my family,” she replied. “We’ll go with my mom and brothers and walk a little behind them. I just have to tell my mom where we’re going. I have to check in every hour or every 30 minutes.”
Those mall trips are infrequent—about once a month. More often, Athena and her friends spend time together on their phones, unchaperoned. Unlike the teens of my generation, who might have spent an evening tying up the family landline with gossip, they talk on Snapchat, the smartphone app that allows users to send pictures and […]
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Alexandra Jacobo, Contributing Writer - Nation of Change
Stephan: Here is some good news about one aspect of our future general wellbeing. It is also an example of the pushback coming from certain states as they resist the disastrous social and environmental policies of the Republican Party headed by Trump. The states will sort themselves out as they are doing here, and we will all be able to see which states prosper and which decline. This is part of the Great Schism Trend.
Here is my prediction: Republican governance on the basis of the outcome data will be notably inferior, if wellbeing is your calibration.
Rising air pollution
Credit: Nation of Change
In a strong victory for environmentalists and the United States, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt reversed the decision to delay an Obama-era ozone pollution regulation.
The EPA announced the decision on Wednesday along with a statement in which Pruitt stated, “We believe in dialogue with, and being responsive to, our state partners. Today’s action reinforces our commitment to working with the states through the complex designation process.”
The decision comes after 15 states and the District of Columbia sued the EPA, claiming that the delay exceeded the agency’s authority under the Clean Air Act.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (D-NY), who led the lawsuit, remained positive but vigilant, saying “Our coalition of attorneys general will continue to take the legal action necessary to protect the people we serve – including making sure the EPA finalizes the designations by October 1, as required by the Clean Air Act.”
Earthjustice, who also sued the EPA last month over the delay, celebrated the victory:
“The EPA’s hasty retreat shows that public health and environmental […]
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Carey Gillam , Research Director of U.S. Right to Know - Alternet/U.S. Right to Know
Stephan: Monsanto in my view is an evil corporation, and no one who values wellbeing, in my opinion, should own a share of Monsanto stock, or buy or use any product Monsanto makes or to which it contributes, unless there is some urgent overriding necessity to do so. We need to starve this cancer by making individual quotidian choices in resistance, and encouraging others to do likewise.
Credit: defotoberg / Shutterstock
Four months after the publication of a batch of internal Monsanto Co. documents stirred international controversy, a new trove of company records was released early Tuesday, providing fresh fuel for a heated global debate over whether or not the agricultural chemical giant suppressed information about the potential dangers of its Roundup herbicide and relied on U.S. regulators for help.
More than 75 documents, including intriguing text messages and discussions about payments to scientists, were posted for public viewing early Tuesday morning by attorneys who are suing Monsanto on behalf of people alleging Roundup caused them or their family members to become ill with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a type of blood cancer. The attorneys posted the documents, which total more than 700 pages, on the website for the law firm Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman, one of many firms representing thousands of plaintiffs who are pursuing claims against Monsanto. More than 100 of those lawsuits have been consolidated in multidistrict litigation in federal court in San Francisco, while other similar […]
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James McCandless, - Texas Observer
Stephan: When I tell you that Republican/libertarian policies produce inferior more expensive, less productive, less pleasant to live under social outcomes I am not engaging in political or partisan speech. I deal in facts. Look at what the Trump Administration and a Republican congress are doing at the federal level. Look at what Sam Brownback has done to Kansas at the state level. Now let's look at the local level. The failure scales up or down, and is consistent at every level.
Art Martinez de Vara was the architect of Von Ormy’s incorporation as a liberty city.
Credit: Kin Man-Hui/San Antonio Express-News
The abandoned cop cars sat in Trina Reyes’ yard for eight months. She wanted them gone, but there were no police to come get them. Last September, the police department in Von Ormy — a town of 1,300 people just southwest of San Antonio — lost its accreditation after it failed to meet basic standards. Reyes was mayor at the time, so the three patrol cars, as well as the squad’s police radios and its computers, ended up at her home. It was just another low point in a two-year saga that she now counts as one of the most difficult experiences of her life.
“This is one of the worst things I’ve ever done,” she said of being mayor. “I’ve never dealt with such angry people. I’m washing my hands of everything. … I’m going to travel. I’m going as far away from Von Ormy as I can.”
For the last […]
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